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I hold both of my hands up, clothing slung over an elbow, and shift them up and down on opposite sides like an imaginary balancing scale. “Which comes first? Mom’s French toast, or an up close and personal look at whatever’s going on out there?”
Her head falls back in laughter.
“What are they even doing out there?” I ask out of curiosity. Every other summer certainly hadn’t held the same view.
She sighs, her shoulders falling as her features draw down toward her pout. “I hate to burst your bubble, but Daddy’s already warned his players off of us this summer.”
“No.” My eyes widen of their own accord. “He wouldn’t do that,” I say, but I already know he totally would do something like that. He takes the wholeProtective Dadrole seriously—a, “Don’t even look at my daughter the wrong way or you’ll be staring down the barrel of my shotgun,” kind of daddy. Which warms my heart, honestly, but simultaneously makes me want to…
I don’t know.
It’s not like I have the mental or emotional capacity for Mr. Tall, Tanned, and Tattooed, anyway.
But a dream killed is a dream killed.
I match Addy’s pout as I exit the room, creep my way down the hallway, and slip into the bathroom. Tossing my clothes onto the counter, I reach over and twist the shower handle, water raining down and crashing against the tiled floor of the walk-in.
I undress and step under the warm spray, imagining I’m washing away some of the debris from my soul.
______
“Oh, sweet mother of Jesus,”I mumble through a mouthful of food. Stacy’s French toast tastes even better than I remembered. I swear, every time I have it it’s better than the last. The light, fluffy, heaven-in-my-mouth French toast, with the lemon curd drizzle she makes, is the best thing on earth.
“So, are you excited about college?” she asks. Her bright green eyes are wide and animated, showing she truly cares about my answer, and I can’t help the nagging reminder that my own parents never have. They don’t even know I got into NYU.
“Of course I am.” I nod. “I can’t wait to be this one’s roommate.” I tip my head toward Addy, my mouth already full with another bite.
Stacy shakes her head with a smile, pointing her spatula at us. “You girls better not get yourselves into too much trouble in the big city, you hear me?”
“Of course not,” Addy and I say at the same time, with far too much innocence, and the three of us burst out laughing in perfect synchrony. Stacy makes the sign of the cross as she turns back to the stove, and Addy can’t stop giggling, which makes me laugh all over again.
We won’t get intotoomuch trouble.
“So, what are the plans for today?” I ask Addy after I’ve cleared most of my plate.
“I don’t know.” She twists her mouth to the side in thought with a small shrug. “I was thinking we could probably go get our nails done and then hit the mall and get lunch or something.”
“Okay.” I smile. I don’t really care what we do, spending time with Addy, any place, is my favorite thing to do. Whether we’re sneaking out of her bedroom window and scaling the side of her house to run off and dance until our feet fall off at some party, or just hanging out on her bed in our PJs watching a movie, it doesn’t really matter to me. Addy can make anything feel like an adventure.
It’s one of the infinite reasons why I love her, and why she’s my favorite person on this planet. Her and her whole family, really. And sitting here, at their giant farmhouse table, Stacy humming at the stove and Addy smiling next to me, it hits me for the first time that this is really it.
The starting point for the rest of my life.
______
As soon as that thought barrels into me, loud and rambunctious laughter fills the space of the back porch. I turn to scope it out just as the back door swings open and a bunch of sweaty football players pour into the kitchen.
Boys—men—of all colors and shapes and sizes crowd around Stacy at the island, more than a few gazes swinging our way. Blue eyes, and green eyes, and brown. A couple of smirks, too.
I clam up involuntarily, my body tightening from the inside out. I wish I could explainwhy,but it’s just what I do. In a room full of people I don’t know, I shrink into myself and everything in me forgets how to work properly. My mind, my thoughts, my breaths, my heart, my limbs, my mouth—all these things that are supposed to run on autopilot simply falter. Unless some sort of alcohol is involved, and then they work overtime, making up for all the times they’ve failed me.
I know there’s a deeper-rooted issue lying in that explanation somewhere, but I’ve got a hoard of demons to root through before I can even begin to examine that one. In the grand scheme of things, it’s the least of my worries.
Leaning forward on my elbows, I take another bite of my breakfast, still managing to admire the view from behind the curtain of my blond hair. Addy nudges my leg underneath the table with her knee, and I smirk around my bite of food. These football players are—for lack of a better word—hot.In both the very sweaty and attractive ways, and Addy is barely keeping ittogether. I notice her gaze is stuck on one guy in particular, though. Glued to him like he’s a tall glass of water in a barren desert. A tall, burly, muscular guy who keeps stealing glances of her, too, and it forces my smirk to stretch higher.
Stacy hands off plates of French toast, eggs, and sausage to eager hands, and then the swarm of guys file out almost as quickly as they came. They congregate around the back porch to eat their breakfasts, their laughter and deep voices penetrating the walls.
“Damn,” I mutter around my last mouthful of food, low enough so only Addy can hear me.